There has been a lot of negative feedback from an editorial that we previously published on the issue surrounding the retirement of Helen Thomas. We would like to take the opportunity to clarify some of the opinions we stated.

First of all we would like to reiterate, “The Battalion does not approve of the statements made by Thomas.” Though some of our statements could have been worded differently to represent a clearer presentation for our readers, we stand by our opinion.

Thomas has had a very successful career and has opened many doors for women, especially women journalists. Thomas became the first woman officer of the White House Correspondents Association and went on to become their first woman president, among many other accomplishments.

Because Thomas made so much progress for women and added much to the news business over her long career, we made the point that it is sad to see her career, or anyone’s career, ended by an unfortunate asserted opinion. Again we do not agree with her sentiments.
Just like many of you we are students learning more every day, so we would like to apologize for our statement about Palestine. We were wrong in saying Palestine was a country, when in fact Palestine was a colony under British rule. We apologize for this mistake and the comments we made based off of the statement.

However, we at The Battalion feel Thomas should be judged by the weight of her career, instead of one comment, and allowed to retire on her own terms.